


Habeas Corpus

by MilesHibernus



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Karen Finds Out, Kidnapping, Not Season/Series 02 Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 12:48:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12169194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilesHibernus/pseuds/MilesHibernus
Summary: The complete phrasehabeas corpus ad subjiciendummeans "that you have the person for the purpose of subjecting him/her to (examination)".





	1. Chapter 1

Matt could hear them from pretty much the moment he stepped onto the sidewalk outside the office; it was late, and while New York might be the city that never sleeps, it’s also the city that has significantly less traffic in forcibly de-gentrified neighborhoods as midnight closes in, and the sounds of cars were mostly distant (the asthmatic wheeze of a taxi two blocks over, a scrum of five waiting at the light on a cross-street). “It’s him,” someone muttered; to be fair it was much too soft for any normal person, even one with above-average ears, to catch it. “Move in, and remember the guy who kills him will _beg_ to die. Boss’ orders.”

Two things fought for Matt’s attention as he tested the door to make sure it had locked (he’d heard the tumblers tick into place): one, that he badly wanted to know more about this ‘boss’ who was so interested in taking Matthew Murdock alive, and two, that there were four sets of footsteps heading his way. It wasn’t that he couldn’t handle four thugs, especially four thugs who were expecting a blind man—but that was just the problem; he couldn’t handle that many and make it look _accidental_. Unless he intended to kill them all—and hired thugs were not worth crossing that line for—he was going to have to let them take him.

He turned and started to tap his way in the direction of his apartment. The two thugs ahead of him stopped, barring the sidewalk; the two behind (one of them was the mutterer; Matt dubbed him the Lieutenant) sped up. Matt kept walking until his cane came down on a thug’s shoe, and then stopped short. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Is someone there?”

From behind him, the Lieutenant said, “Are you Matt Murdock? The lawyer?”

Matt jerked around (he was good at simulating surprise) and filled his voice with poorly-concealed worry. “Yes, can I help you? It’s a little after business hours.” A shaky smile, the smile of a man who already knows he’s in trouble but doesn’t want to admit it yet.

Behind Matt, one of the men moved, his hand coming out of his pocket. Matt caught the sickly-sweet smell and emptied his lungs of air, drew a deep breath.

“Someone wants to talk to you,” the Lieutenant said, and then the damp rag came down over Matt’s mouth and nose (chloroform, cheap cologne, pepperoni pizza). He jerked to conceal the fact that he wasn’t inhaling, though the chemical still burned in his nostrils and he knew some of it would get to him. The thug with the rag kicked him in the back of the knees and he flailed, catching the Lieutenant in the shin with his cane (by accident, just by accident). The rag pressed down and Matt heaved his chest as if he were breathing. He clumsily pried at the hand holding the rag (the cloth was rough, cheap, _like sandpaper on my skin_ ) with hands that weakened rapidly. He slumped. The tip of his cane _tacked_ on the pavement and one of the other thugs moved in to help lower him.

They knew their business, kept the rag over his face for long enough that his lungs were screaming for air by the time they let up. Matt lay on the sidewalk and concentrated on looking boneless; it wasn’t as difficult as he might have liked. A car, no a van rounded the corner, the side door sliding open even as it came to a stop. “Stow him,” the Lieutenant said. The other three bundled him in unceremoniously but with due care. They didn’t want Matt damaged, at least not yet.

He was still together enough to sense the Lieutenant’s searching hands coming, which let him stay limp as he was patted down. The man checked his wallet. “It’s him alright.” Another pass and the Lieutenant grunted in satisfaction. “Bingo. He has two phones,” the man said. “The Devil wants to be able to get in touch with his guy, looks like. That’ll make things easier.”

 _Oh shit_ , Matt thought.


	2. Chapter 2

The shrill of the burner’s default ringer startled Foggy out of his last descent towards sleep and he was rolling to grab it from his nightstand before he was all the way awake. It was nearly two, but that wasn’t what made him angry; Matt had known Foggy didn’t have any plans tonight, which meant if he was calling this late he was aware he’d be waking him, so Matt must be in serious trouble.

No, what pissed him off was that Matt had promised, fucking _promised_ that when he was done at the office he was going to go home and go to bed, not put on his stupid superhero suit and go out to try again to get himself killed. So Foggy didn’t even try not to make it a demand when he snapped, “Where are you?”

“We have your lawyer,” said the voice on the other end, and groggy as he was it took Foggy a beat to realize, horrified, that it wasn’t Matt’s.

His impulse to babble came to his rescue. “Sorry, man, I think you have the wrong number,” he said, in a voice that he thought was fairly normal. “I don’t have a lawyer. Don’t really need one, you know, I’m pretty law-abiding. I mean there’s the jaywalking—” _Not to mention abetting a vigilante_ , his mind noted with bizarre cheer, but the man on the phone was talking again.

“Cut the crap, Devil. We have your lawyer. You have two hours before we start hacking pieces off.”

Foggy took a deep breath. _This is bad_ , he thought. _This is so bad_. “Which one?” he asked, forcing himself into an imitation of Matt’s Daredevil growl.

“The blind one. Murdock,” the man said. 

“Prove it,” Foggy said.

There was a sound like someone clapping their hands, and then the caller’s voice, muffled, saying, “Say hello, Murdock.”

There was a long pause, and another clap—no, Foggy realized with a sickening swoop of his stomach, a _slap_ —and then Matt’s voice, thick and mumbling like he was half-asleep. “Hello?” he said. “Hello, who is this? I...call the police, please, they—”

Foggy lost the rest of it as Matt’s captor took the phone out of range. “Satisfied?”

“You’re going to regret this,” Foggy said sincerely.

“You come right up to the front door, alone, and we’ll let you see him walking away,” the man said. “Two hours, and if we see the cops, he’s fucking dead. Got it?”

“Give me the address,” Foggy said, his lips numb.

* * *

Foggy worried about Karen for a lot of reasons; one of them was that the outside door of her building only locked about two thirds of the time. On this occasion it worked in his favor, though, since he didn’t have to utter the words “Matt’s in trouble” while standing on the street.

Karen pulled her door open while Foggy was still several feet away from it and rubbed her eyes under a halo of soft light from a table lamp. She stood barefoot in shapeless pajama pants and a camisole, worry stamped on her face, and Foggy _hated_ being the one who’d put it there.

“OK, explain,” she said as he entered the apartment. “What kind of _trouble_ , he was still at the office when I left. Did he get mugged on the way home?”

Foggy leaned back on the door, using his weight to latch it, and said, “Someone called me from Matt’s phone.” True, though Karen only knew about the _other_ phone Matt carried and speaking of things Foggy hated, he hated keeping secrets from her. “They took him.” Karen’s hand went to her mouth. Grimly, Foggy went on, “They think the person they talked to is Daredevil and if he doesn’t show up they…” He had to stop and swallow hard. “They say they’ll hurt him. Starting ninety-three minutes from now.”

“The police,” Karen began, and then shook her head. Foggy didn’t know what his face was doing but he suspected it wasn’t good. “They’ll kill him. Won’t they.”

“That’s what they said.” His voice tried to crack and he forced it steady.

“Oh, God,” Karen said, and closed her eyes for a second. She took a breath, let it out. “OK. OK. Maybe...maybe Daredevil already knows.” Hope rang in her voice like a bell and that was why Foggy loved her, because even in circumstances like this she could hope. “He seems to, to keep track of us.”

Foggy made a noise that even he could tell was only laugh-adjacent and said, “He knows. Daredevil knows Matt’s been taken.” And Jesus, what Foggy wouldn’t give to have Liam Neeson on his side right now.

“But that’s good!” Karen exclaimed. “Daredevil can get Matt—wait, how do you know he knows?”

Foggy hadn’t come here intending to tell her; it wasn’t his secret. But he couldn’t say he was sorry—and if he was going to be honest with himself, which usually he avoided assiduously, he’d known perfectly well that explanations would have to happen. “Karen, OK, this is going to sound crazy. I know it’s crazy, you don’t have to tell me that. And you have to believe I didn’t want to keep it secret from you but he’s a stubborn son of a bitch, and Jesus Christ never tell him I said that about his mother, he’ll—”

“Foggy,” she said, sharp enough to cut across the babble of panic. “Just tell me.”

“Matt’s Daredevil,” he blurted, and fought down the hand that wanted to cover his mouth like a little kid who’d just tattled to the teacher.

Karen’s expression changed, to anger, and for a second Foggy was glad someone else shared his reaction, but then she spat, “Foggy, you asshole, just _fucking tell me_.” There was a long beat and she went on, “No. OK, I’m sorry, I know you’re out of your mind but I need to know.”

Foggy put his face in his hands, breathed in and out, and tried to remember what Matt had taught him about meditating. He met Karen’s eyes and said, “Matt is Daredevil. We can’t get help from him, he’s the one who needs rescuing.”

Karen stared at him. Her pupils were huge in the dim light. “Jesus,” she breathed after a beat. “Jesus. This explains _so much_.” Foggy blinked confusion at her and she said fondly, “I told you I didn’t believe it was a car accident. You’re lucky I had Fisk to blame or I’d’ve grassed you up as a domestic abuser. I _work_ with you two, I see how he moves, you can’t think I believe his apartment makes him that clumsy.” Foggy...just didn’t know how to respond to that, because of all the reactions he might have expected, Karen essentially _squeeing_ over Matt (shut up, he has the Internet, he’s met fangirls) was nowhere on the list. 

“He’s not clumsy,” he said bitterly as she drew breath. He didn’t mean to talk over her, he really didn’t, he hated that sexist bullshit. “He’s just a goddamned idiot.”

“He saved my life, Foggy,” Karen said, with a note of reproach in her voice.

“And thank God he did,” Foggy said, and suddenly he was so tired, he wanted to sit down so much he could taste it. “But I also found him _bleeding to death_ on his apartment floor, Karen, and now this, and there’s a limit to how many times he can get away with this shit.” His voice went higher and higher as he talked, and he closed his eyes to stop the tears. Karen stood quietly as he bit his lip and wrestled himself under control one more time.

“What do you want to do?” she asked calmly. Foggy loved her so much at that moment he could hardly stand it; she had to be just as frantic as he was, and there she went giving him what he needed to be calm, and speaking of sexist bullshit there _he_ went letting her do his emotional labor for him. They weren’t ever going to be lovers, but it didn’t matter. She was still _perfect_. 

“If I go and turn myself in to them, Matt can come back for me,” Foggy said. “They said they’d let me watch him leave.”

“And you believe them?” Karen asked, and she was skeptical, for which Foggy _totally did not_ blame her, but it wasn’t like he could think of any alternatives.

“Do you have a better idea?” he said, and there was a long pause. “Seriously, please tell me if you have a better idea, because this one makes me want to puke.”

Karen swallowed.

“Shit,” Foggy said.

The moment of awful silence was broken by the burner phone’s ring and they both jumped. Foggy was pretty sure he actually squeaked but he really couldn’t make himself care. He pulled the phone out of his pocket and flipped it open, and by some miracle his voice was rock steady. “What?”

And then he yanked the phone away from his ear and dropped it in a fumble that would probably have been funny as hell if he couldn’t still hear Matt screaming. Karen went even paler and clapped her hand over her own mouth as if to muffle herself.

Foggy’d never heard Matt scream, he could have gone his _whole life_ without ever hearing Matt scream. He picked up the phone, put it back to his ear and barked, “ _Leave him alone_.”

Matt’s voice choked off into something that sounded like it really wanted to be sobs, and then the asshole from the first call said conversationally, “Just wanted you to know we’re serious, Devil. In case you were thinking about not showing up.”

“You’re not exactly filling me with confidence in your word,” Foggy said. “You said two hours, you shit.”

“I said two hours before we did anything that would last,” Asshole said. “Just keep it in mind.” And he hung up.

“Oh Jesus,” Karen whispered, and it had to be Foggy’s imagination that the words echoed.

“He’s gotta be faking it,” Foggy said, in a glass-enclosed calm. _Shock_ , he thought, _This is shock, I’m in shock_. “They think he’s just some guy, and he’s playing along. Right?”

“Right,” Karen said. A tear broke free and trickled down her cheek. “He’s playing along.”

“OK. We have to stop by Matt’s,” Foggy said.

* * *

By the time they neared the rendezvous, Foggy's calm was cracking and he clung to the shreds for dear life. They paused in an alley behind a convenient Dumpster so he could give Karen his phones and wallet. “I’ll send him this way,” he said, and she nodded. Even in the shitty streetlamp light he could see that her eyes were as red as that first day in the interrogation room, but she was calm—on the outside, at least. Foggy was _so glad_ he couldn’t hear her heartbeat; his own was bad enough.

“What if…” she started, and Foggy shook his head. There were so many things that could go wrong with this plan, and if any of them did he was utterly fucked, so there was no point.

“Then I’ll probably have a rough day,” he said, trying for a joke. She didn’t smile.

“If he can’t, I _will_ ,” she said fiercely, and Foggy believed her. “Just be careful, Foggy.”

“I’m always careful. Careful is my middle name.”

“Your middle name is Percy,” she said, and caught his wrist. Karen was nearly his height, even in the sneakers she was wearing, so he didn’t have to bend to let her kiss him on the cheek. “For luck.”

“Thanks,” Foggy said, and blew out all his breath. “OK. Here goes nothing.”

It was hard to walk with his kneecaps jittering—he didn’t get stage fright in court anymore, but apparently all his old reliable stress reactions were out in force tonight. Of course, in court he didn’t have to worry about himself and his two closest friends getting shot in the head, so he gave himself a pass. At least he had something to _do_ ; Karen just had to wait, and the first hint she’d get if things went south would be the sound of the gun.

The building he was walking toward looked completely deserted, though Foggy’s well-honed sense of narrative fitness was happy to note that it was warehouse-like; at least if he got shot it would be in the kind of building every movie, TV show and comic book ever insisted was the _right_ kind. The guys who had Matt had probably picked it because its front door gave on a parking lot that would take several seconds to cross. They’d have plenty of time to see him coming.

He called Matt’s burner. The call picked up but no one spoke. “I’m on my way in,” Foggy said. 

“Stop in the middle of the lot, kneel down and put your hands on your head,” Asshole said. “We’ll send Murdock out past you.” Which Foggy had to assume was good; it meant Matt could walk on his own. The call dropped.

The middle of the lot was a stretch of bare concrete a good thirty feet in every direction from anything that could be remotely described as cover. Foggy knelt, sideways to the door, and put his hands on his head. He clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering. Two red dots tracked across the pavement towards him; one stopped on his chest and the other kept going, he assumed to his forehead. His mind was a constant chant of _Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck_ but there was nothing he could do. It was ridiculously uncomfortable to kneel, though at least the jeans he’d flung on mostly protected his legs.

Logically he knew it was a few minutes at most, but it seemed like hours before the front door of the building opened and Matt came stumbling out as if he’d been shoved. The door was a foot or so above the level of the pavement and Matt missed the shallow steps, falling ungracefully and without catching himself. “Matt, it’s me, it’s Foggy,” Foggy whispered, as quiet as he could get.

Matt levered himself up like footage from the Battle of Manhattan of Captain America shaking off a stunning blow. He hadn’t caught himself because his hands were tied together, and the fingers of one hand were wrapped in something pale, but he didn’t look hurt that Foggy could see in the chancy light. “Hello?” Matt called, and Foggy blessed him for playing to their audience—for all that Matt was weirdly bad at lying outright, he was _brilliant_ at faking helplessness. “Don’t do this,” Matt said, and Foggy’s satisfaction curdled in his stomach. “Don’t—don’t kill yourself for me.”

“Just go, Murdock,” Foggy said, in his closing-arguments voice. “I know what I’m doing.” Then, under his breath again, “Out to the street and left, Karen’s two blocks down, she has your suit.” Matt made it to his feet and stood swaying. It was too dark to see his expression but Foggy didn’t need that to sense the distress that radiated from him. “ _Go_ ,” Foggy said, and Matt looked straight at him—as straight as Matt ever ‘looked’ at anything—and his chin went down in a minute nod.

Watching Matt leave was possibly the hardest thing Foggy had ever done in his life, and he was actually including the agonizing wait between calling Claire and when she showed up to keep Matt’s guts from continuing to leak all over his floor. For one thing Matt kept up the helpless-blind-guy act, down to ramming his shin into the low guardrail that surrounded the parking lot and if Foggy hadn’t known better he’d sure have been convinced. Matt was panting, the way you pant when you’re panicking (the way Foggy was _not_ panting, no matter how much he wanted to be), and Foggy was sure it was to pick up the scents better but he’d heard Matt breathe that way before and it was never good.

And also, not to put too fine a point on it, Foggy was scared shitless. When this was over, he was gonna demand a fucking medal for not even _whispering_ ‘Please don’t leave me here alone,’ because Matt was a self-sacrificing _idiot_ and he’d try, and Matt couldn’t see the laser dot that settled in his hair as he went but Foggy could. 

Foggy didn’t let himself believe that they were going to get away with this lunacy as Matt staggered away, not until Matt had actually turned the corner. Apparently the kidnappers believed he was _that_ helpless, as if even a normal blind person couldn’t count turns and intersections till they hit a known location and could work backwards. Or maybe they’d threatened him, maybe he’d convinced them he was working with Daredevil under duress and wouldn’t want to save him...Foggy didn’t know, he just decided to be grateful that there was some honor in these thieves.

Nothing happened for maybe ten beats of his frantic heart, and then Asshole’s voice came from the still-open door. “We’re coming out, Devil. Stay where you are. Even if you don’t get shot, we can always send someone after Murdock—he can’t have gotten far.”

Foggy swallowed and forced his chin up. Three men emerged from the building, covered in dark clothes down to the black ski masks over their faces, and Foggy tried to be optimistic about that; why would they bother hiding their faces unless they thought he was going to live to talk about them? Two of them had guns, and Foggy had to fight down completely inappropriate laughter. There was only one of him! He still had a fucking laser dot on his chest! How many guns did they think they needed for _one guy_? 

To be fair, they thought they were dealing with Daredevil and his rep for jumping into the middle of large groups and coming out on top, but Foggy wasn’t in any mood to be fair.

The guy with no gun had a pair of handcuffs and a _very bright_ flashlight, as Foggy discovered when it suddenly glared into his face. He winced and blinked furiously under the assault.

“Shit,” one of the gun guys said in a tone of mild surprise.

“Shut up,” snapped the third, and yeah, that was Asshole’s voice, joy and fucking rapture. “Hands behind your back.”

Foggy did as he was told (it was kind of a relief, his arms were tired, who knew it was such a pain to keep your arms up like that?) and Asshole handcuffed him, careful to stay out of his underlings’ line of fire. Foggy snorted. “Handcuffs, really,” he said. “You have seen that footage from the night of the bombings, right?”

Aaand they all tensed up, shit, that was not the effect he was going for and damn his mouth anyway. “Chill,” he said, trying for offhand. He racked his imagination for what Matt would say. “I’m not going anywhere. When you kill me, you’ll have no reason to go after them.” That sounded enough like a martyr, right?

“Get up,” Asshole ordered. Foggy grinned and shook his head and was rewarded with a moment of blinking incomprehension before Asshole recovered and said, “You know why you need to cooperate.”

“Dude, I am cooperating,” Foggy said. He didn’t attempt to summon a convincing laugh but he was pretty sure he couldn’t make the grin go away if he tried; his face was stuck that way, just like his mother had always warned him. “You can tell by the way you’re not lying on the ground shrieking and clutching your nuts.”

He was pretty sure Matt didn’t usually hit guys in the nuts, but hey, it sounded badass.

“If we have to carry you inside you’re gonna be unconscious while we do it, _Nelson_ ,” Asshole said.

“Congratulations, you managed to recognize me despite my clever attempts to hide my identity,” Foggy drawled. He was getting a handle on this. It was just like going up against a hostile prosecutor, only with more guns. “Maybe you want to think about what it means that I don’t care if you see my face.”

Asshole’s hand shot out and grabbed him by the front of his sweatshirt, and Foggy didn’t have a prayer of hiding the flinch; he had to hope it looked like suppressing the reflex to fight back. “Was that a threat, Devil? You think you get to threaten us? We know where your partner lives. We know where your cute little piece of office ass lives. We know where your parents and sister live.”

“So did Fisk, and I’ll bet you know where _he_ lives, too,” Foggy shot back. “Now come on, are we doing this? I’ll walk, whatever, I’m just getting bored.” He wasn’t sure he was playing this right; maybe it was better to stay outside where it’d be easier for Matt to get to them? On the other hand, there wasn’t any cover out here and there had to be at least five of them so Matt would need to be able to sneak around. So: inside it was.

They hauled him up by the biceps, which was just as uncomfortable as it sounded, and marched him into the building. The door gave into an unlit chamber that turned out to be a hallway with no exterior windows once the door was shut behind them and Asshole flicked a light switch. No one spoke as they walked down the hall.

The door at the far end looked suitably industrial, its small window filled with glass that had wire mesh buried in it. Asshole swiped a card through the reader beside it, and Foggy got one step more worried—which, seriously, he wouldn’t have thought was possible. Could Matt pick locks? Could Matt pick _this kind_ of lock? Inside was looking less and less like a good plan but it was too damn late now.

They walked through a cavernous warehouse space. Foggy assumed the clerestory windows were painted over, not that it would take much to hide the dim after-hours lighting; he could see light fixtures, but only one in five was on. There was another door with another card reader; when it opened he could see the crash bar. Which meant there wasn’t any exit on the far side of it, assuming this place was up to code, and Foggy welcomed thoughts about OSHA standards so he wouldn’t start gibbering and weeping.

The corridor was short and plain concrete, nothing to see but four metal doors with thumb latches at eye level. OSHA standards were not going to be sufficiently distracting; Foggy started to try to remember the words to “C’est Moi” from _Camelot_.

That got him into the room at least. It was smallish and bare, though from the looks of the dust on the floor it had been emptied only recently. The lights were recessed fluorescents rather than the traditional bare hanging bulb (minimum of 5 foot-candels required, see §1926.56(a) - standard met.), but Foggy figured he could make allowances for having to work with what was available. He intended to dock points for the lack of a plain wooden chair to tie him to, except that what they had was a heavy eyebolt in the ceiling with a length of chain dangling from it (29 CFR §1926.753(d)(2)(ii) "Hooks with self-closing safety latches or their equivalent shall be used to prevent components from slipping out of the hook..." - standard _not met_ ), and that would probably do the job just as well. There was a table against the wall with a cloth over it and Foggy didn’t like the look of it one bit, _oh Jesus Matt hurry the fuck up_.

Asshole spent a few seconds eyeing the chain and then Foggy, while Foggy tried not to hyperventilate. “No,” the man said at last. “That’ll make you pass out too quick.” Foggy clamped down on the urge to demand what exactly _that_ meant, and then figured it out when Asshole briefly uncuffed his hands to move them to his front before slipping the handcuff chain over the hook. He’d been thinking of hoisting Foggy up with his hands still _behind_ him. And while Foggy was reasonably flexible, he was pretty sure that would have dislocated at least one shoulder in short order. Hell, it would probably have done the same to Matt, and Matt had muscles like most people had credit-card debt. The human shoulder just wasn’t designed for load-bearing at that angle.

So.

That was a silver lining, right?

The thing was, he was fucking petrified, but it didn’t seem to matter very much. He could pretend to be fearless, because Foggy was damned good at being what he needed to be for the people around him. These guys wanted Daredevil; Foggy could be Daredevil. Matt had laughed till he choked the first time Foggy read the phrase “The Man Without Fear” out of the _Bulletin_ to him, but that was what people saw, so that was what Foggy would be, and the constant gnawing rat of panic in his mind could just fuck off.

“Are we sure about this guy?” one of the thugs asked. “I mean—look at ‘im.”

Asshole shrugged. “He came when we called the Devil.”

“He’s _fat_ ,” the thug pointed out, and just like that Foggy was done.

Well. Still petrified, but _also_ done.

“When you get your teeth punched out, I’m gonna laugh at you,” Foggy said pleasantly. “Don’t worry, though, it won’t ruin your looks, there’s not that much harm to be done, you know? By which I mean, you’re ugly and your mama dresses you funny. And apparently she dropped you on your head when you were a baby because you think that kidnapping people is a valid career choice.”

The thugs and Asshole exchanged looks that were incredulous enough for Foggy to tell despite the ski masks. “I am a lawyer so _trust me_ , I know that the system we’ve got sucks, but there are still millions of people who _don’t_ decide to fuck other people up and still manage to get by. You could be doing something respectable, but instead you hurt people for a living. So yeah. Teeth, laughing. It’ll be awesome.”

Asshole jerked his chin in Foggy’s direction and the thug took a step forward and punched Foggy efficiently in the stomach. He tried to double over but didn’t get far before his chained wrists caught him up short. It took him a few seconds to catch his breath enough to wheeze, “Finally. I was starting to wonder if you morons had the balls for it.”

Asshole studied him for a second. He was a biggish guy, taller than Foggy or Matt and broad in the shoulders, but not intimidatingly huge. “Go get the camera setup,” he said. One of the thugs nodded and went out—the door wasn’t locked yet, Foggy noted. _Yay_?

It only took a few seconds for the thug to return, pushing a wheeled cart like something out of high school AV club. A laptop sat on it, with a Skype window showing nothing but a blur. Whoever was on the other end had stuck something over their camera.

“Tilt it down,” said the laptop, in a voice that had clearly been run through a filter. “I need to be able to see him.” Asshole obligingly moved the screen. “Good.”

The byplay with the camera was enough time for Foggy to get his metaphorical feet under him, and he wanted to have the first word. There was no one they were trying to convince, so setting the tone was more important than being all _Et Brutus vir honestus est_ about this. “But before you kill me, Mr. Blofeld, won’t you tell me your secret plan?” he asked, in his very best Sean Connery impression—which, _yes_ , Matt, wasn’t that great, but it got the point across. 

The laptop emitted a bizarre sound that Foggy figured was probably what a laugh sounded like after going through whatever voice-distortion software they were using, but first there was just a beat of a pause, and he cheered internally. “You aren’t what I was expecting,” said the voice. Foggy decided it was the Boss.

“I try to keep it fresh. Predictability means you can be predicted.” _Ugh. Tautology much_?

“That’s true. For example, I knew that if I threatened your friend, you’d come running.”

Foggy rolled his eyes. “It’s worth a little risk to preserve a useful asset.”

For a moment there was no reply, and then the sound of Matt screaming filled the room, and Foggy’s own voice snapping, “ _Leave him alone_.” After another brief pause, the Boss said, “That sounds like more than an asset, Mr. Nelson.” It was hard to tell through the distortion, but Foggy thought the tone was...arch. Teasing, even.

“Well. I mean, have you seen him? He’s got the puppydog eyes and the floppy hair, not to mention how his ass looks in suit pants.”

“I have, in fact. He’s a very attractive man. But there’s more to it than that, I think.” The Boss fell silent and Foggy didn’t let himself squirm under the feeling of scrutiny. “Does he know what you do?”

“If he didn’t before he does now, thanks to you,” Foggy retorted. “We’ve known each other since undergrad. He knows my voice.” He spent a moment thanking anybody who might be listening that none of these people could hear his heart, though it was probably already going fast enough that it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. “Look, let’s cut to the chase here, huh? What do you want?”

“Nothing you can give me,” the Boss replied, and there was an edge to it now, audible even through the voice changer. “You took something from me, Mr. Nelson, so now I’ll take something from you.”

Foggy’d gone to law school, OK, Foggy’d done theater, he knew a setup line when he heard one. He closed his eyes and wished he had a wall to bang his head against. “Fuuuck,” he said. "I should have known you assholes wouldn’t really let him go.”

“I admit, I’m surprised. He was an easier target—” Foggy _did not laugh_ “—but I’d’ve thought you’d be more protective of the girl.” That amused tone was back, like the Boss was a friend teasing him.

“She’s a _woman_ , and if you touch _either_ of them again—”

“You’re in no position to be making threats.”

Foggy was spared having to come up with some bravado to answer that by Asshole putting a hand to his ear. When he spoke his tone was sharp enough to make hope well up in Foggy’s heart. “What? Check again.”

“Is something wrong?” the Boss asked, and Foggy bared his teeth in a grin that he knew couldn’t be called friendly. The Boss wasn’t very _good_ at this. Showing weakness in front of opposing counsel: bad idea.

From the way Asshole’s lips twisted he knew it, too, but he understood the concept of solidarity. “That’s what we’re going to find out. You, stay on him. You, with me.” _Stay on him_ was the thug who’d called Foggy fat. Asshole and the other thug trooped out the door, and this time Foggy heard the _snick_ of the latch.

On the one hand, that changed the odds in Foggy’s favor. On the other, the remaining guy still did have a gun and Foggy was still attached to the frigging ceiling, so he wasn’t exactly rolling in options. On the gripping hand, the chain from the ceiling looked sturdy but Foggy was only attached to _it_ by the handcuffs, which probably couldn’t take his weight.

Foggy’s guard leaned back against the wall, his gun tucked away somewhere. His body language was trying for bored but Foggy could see tension in him; he was worried about what might be going wrong. Which was smarter of him than Foggy would have expected, since Foggy was pretty sure what was going wrong was Matt, and that meant this guy and all his violent buddies were about to have a really bad night. Try as he might Foggy couldn’t feel too sorry about that...not that he was trying _that_ hard.

The Boss said, “I have to ask, Mr. Nelson, do you ever feel guilty about the things you’ve done?”

Foggy snorted and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, no, I’m not gonna argue morality with a person who hires kidnappers. You lose, full stop.”

“Your methods are hardly pure,” the Boss said, affronted.

“And if jerks like you didn’t exist, you know where I’d be right now? At home, sleeping. I would literally _thank God_ if Hell’s Kitchen never saw Daredevil again, and the last time I set foot in church I was eleven. I don’t start these fights, you do, so you can take your Not So Different speech and shove it. False equivalence, ten yard penalty and loss of down.” Because seriously, Foggy didn’t _like_ what Matt did, but he was capable of seeing the difference. If he hadn’t he’d have turned Matt in months ago.

Foggy’s guard said, “You want I should shut him up for you?”

“Thank you, but I can handle him,” the Boss said, and Foggy had a moment of insight: the Boss was a woman. His direct captors might or might not know that, but Foggy was mortally certain. She was used to people offering to do things for her she was perfectly capable of doing herself.

“Sure,” the thug said. Foggy couldn’t tell if he was relieved or disappointed. Clearly the guy liked hurting people, but on the other hand it would mean getting within kicking range of “Daredevil” without backup.

“I would think that a man in your position would be more interested in, mmm, finding common ground,” the Boss said, and Foggy scoffed.

“We both know you’re planning to kill me,” he said. “We both know you want to kill my friend in front of me first. There’s no common ground there.” It was a little more blunt than he liked his closing statements to be, but he was confident the Boss wasn’t going to order him killed until her goons had Matt back. And by now Matt pretty much had to be kicking ass and taking names, because if he wasn’t Foggy was dead anyway.

“It will be very satisfying to watch you lose what you love,” the Boss said. “I think I will enjoy—”

The lights died. An instant later the Skype window flickered as the call shut down.

“Hey!” said Foggy’s guard. The laptop screen gave enough light that Foggy could see him moving, probably digging for his gun. “What’d you do?”

“Dude, you’ve been right here the whole time. I didn’t do anything.” Foggy’s eyes weren’t adjusting fast enough for him to read the thug’s expression, but the gleam of the gun barrel wavered away from him as the man turned to the door. Which was of course latched, hooray. 

The thug pounded on it with his fist—the one _not_ holding a gun, which showed a little more sense than Foggy had honestly been expecting—and yelled, “Hey, what’s going on?”

Answer came there none. Foggy could feel the grin starting up again and while the thug was busy he decided to test his theory. He bent his knees until his weight hung from his wrists, took a deep breath, and picked his feet off the floor.

 _Ow, ow, ow, ow_ , he thought urgently. He really, really wanted to put his feet back down but he wanted to be not attached to the ceiling more. Except if the handcuff chain—honestly, more of a single link—was breaking, he couldn’t tell, and the bracelets were both jammed into the bases of his thumbs and it was stupidly painful, shit, this was a bad idea. He put his feet back down. It didn’t help as much as he’d hoped. “Fuck,” he muttered.

The thug snapped his head around. “What did you do?” he demanded, and Foggy was pretty good at detecting an oncoming freakout at this point in his life, it was pretty much a survival skill because he was best friends with a _crazy person_.

Also maybe freaking out just a little himself? But he figured he was allowed. “Nothing,” Foggy insisted. “I have literally been fucking standing here chained to the fucking ceiling, OK, what the fuck do you think I _can_ do?” Yeah, that was a freakout all right. He didn’t swear like that when he wasn’t freaking out. Heck, he usually didn’t swear like that when he was freaking out except he sort of felt an obligation to talk to this moron in the guy’s native language.

“Everyone knows the Devil can do shit,” the thug said, and his gun was pointing at Foggy now. And just to be _extra_ fun, it didn’t look steady. 

“You know what, whatever. I used my special magic power of _standing here chained to the ceiling_ , you do you,” Foggy said. He was so sick of this jerk. And tired and he wanted to sit down and he was pretty sure he was losing feeling in his hands, so all around a really great time.

The thug stared at him with narrowed eyes and Foggy just stared back, hoping his expression conveyed _Are you fucking kidding me right now?_ well enough.

The door latch turned over. 

The thug spun again to face it.

It opened and the thug said, “Smitty?” and then there was a hissing noise Foggy almost recognized and the guy shrieked and whacked himself in the face with the butt of his gun trying to cover his eyes. The door hit him in the side as it swung wider.

Karen stepped into view swinging a heavy Maglite with vicious precision. It hit the thug’s temple with a surprisingly audible _thud_. He crumpled, dazed. Karen kicked him hard in the ribs and he folded gasping around himself. “And _stay_ down,” she spat. The chemical bite of her pepper spray filled the air, strong enough that Foggy’s eyes filled with tears—that was definitely why. She looked up and her expression melted into concern. “Foggy, are you OK?”

Foggy wanted to say _I am now_ or _Don’t I look OK?_ or...something a guy in a movie would say, but what came out of his mouth, in a tiny voice he hardly believed was his, was, “No.” He crammed his lips shut and Karen made a sound that was more like a sob than a laugh.

“OK,” she said. “Dumb question.”

Foggy had known that standard handcuffs like cops used all took the same key—he was a defense attorney, he dealt with people who’d been handcuffed sometimes—and somehow it failed to shock him when Karen produced one. She had to push the AV cart over and climb onto it to reach the cuffs, but her hands were steady when she unlocked him. Getting the pressure of the cuffs off his wrists was such a relief Foggy almost folded right there.

“Where’s—Daredevil?” he asked, as Karen swung back off the cart.

“Dealing with the rest of these assholes,” Karen said briskly. “He says he’ll meet us outside. Matt’s calling the cops.” 

Foggy wasn’t at all sure the downed thug was coherent enough to make sense of what she was saying but adding a little extra cover probably couldn’t hurt. “OK. OK. Let’s get out of here.”

They locked the door on Foggy’s guard and walked out to the first security door. Foggy had to consciously suppress the urge to hunch over, as if that was going to help. Karen peered through the window for a few seconds, but the warehouse space was pitch dark. “Here goes nothing,” she said, and hit the crash bar. 

Once they were through they paused. Foggy could hear something, impact and harsh breathing. “Shit,” he said, in a ridiculously conversational tone, and started towards the noise. 

“Foggy, wait,” Karen said, but Foggy wasn’t listening. She hurried after him, the beam of her flashlight making a wavering circle of clarity in the dark.

They saw movement first, and then the edge of the light caught color, dark red hunched over something on the floor. Matt. It was Matt. He had Asshole’s collar in one hand and was punching the man in the face with the other, over and over, and as Foggy skidded to a stop his breathing formed words.

“You don’t touch him. You don’t touch her.”

Foggy had seen Matt angry before—the mock trial he’d staged against York in L2 had been the first time, but hardly the last—but he’d never seen anything like this. _Knowing_ that Matt went out and beat people to pulp on the regular wasn’t the same as actually watching him do it, and it wasn’t like this guy was fighting back or even struggling to run; Foggy would have laid serious money that Asshole wasn’t conscious anymore. Matt drew his hand back again and Foggy lunged for it. “Stop!” 

He knew perfectly well his grip wasn’t going to hold back the punch if Matt committed to it, but at his touch Matt froze. “Stop,” Foggy repeated. “He’s out. If we’re gonna spin this, we have to do it now.”

Matt took a deep breath and let it out with a shudder. He released Asshole’s collar and made no attempt to catch the guy as he slumped. “If we call it in anonymously, they might tell the police who they were after to make trouble for us,” he said. Foggy didn’t like the sound of his voice, over-calm in a way Foggy associated with the migraines that occasionally laid him up, but at least he was forming full sentences and making coherent arguments.

“So we don’t do that,” Karen said. Foggy didn’t jump, not because he’d heard her coming but because he was _all out_ of fucks. “We tell them exactly what happened, except for the part where you’re Daredevil. They grabbed Matt off the street, called Foggy thinking he was Daredevil, Foggy decided to turn himself in to buy time. I went to get in touch with Daredevil and brought him here.”

“OK, but,” Foggy said. “Why can you get in touch with him?”

Karen’s look of exasperation was epic, even underlit and washed out by the Maglite’s beam. “I will imply I’ve been sleeping with him, Foggy, what the hell do you think?”

Matt laughed, the sound so unexpected that Foggy almost did jump, and said, “That would be unethical of me.”

“It’s debatably ethical for Matt Murdock, my boss,” Karen said. “For Daredevil, it’s perfectly fine.”

“And Matt and I have burner phones so we have numbers we can give our clients that aren’t our regular phones,” Foggy said. “OK. This is a plan. We can do this. No more details, if we all say exactly the same thing we'll sound like we're making it up.” He nodded, swallowed hard. “Matt should make the call, like you said. _Please_ let me tell the cops you came in and rescued me, Karen, it’s too awesome not to.”

“And the fewer details we change, the easier it’ll be to keep our story straight,” Matt said. “So yes, Karen should tell the officers all about how she insisted on putting herself in harm’s way.” He didn’t sound happy about it.

“You don’t get to talk, buddy,” Foggy said, giddy with relief. “You of all people do not get to talk.”


	3. Chapter 3

Pulling off his left glove broke the fragile clots that had formed where his fingernails used to be, and Matt couldn’t keep Foggy and Karen from noticing (their hearts jolted in near-unison).

“Jesus, Matt,” Foggy said, ignoring Matt’s murmur of _language_ to grab his hand and study it (what he saw made his heart stutter again). “Was this while...when they called the second time?” He sounded wrecked, and Matt couldn’t blame him. It had been a long night.

“Yeah,” Matt said. “I—I didn’t want you to hear that but I had to—” 

“Play along,” Karen said.

“Yeah,” he repeated as he shed the top half of the suit. “They had to think I was harmless. Weak.” Karen handed him his shirt and he tried not to grimace at the smell of it (sweat and blood, his own scent, laundry detergent, the sandwich he’d eaten at his desk decades ago). He fumbled with the buttons and frowned down at them. 

“Here,” Karen said, and then her cool fingers pushed his hands away. He managed his pants on his own, though. While he finished dressing Karen folded the suit into the bag she’d brought it in—her gym bag, probably. She held on to the Maglite, so as not to have to take it out again when it was requested as evidence.

"We're gonna have to work out who was behind this," Karen said, and Matt knew that tone—that was Karen with her teeth in a story. 

"Not tonight." Matt held out his hand and Foggy slapped his phone (The Lieutenant had had it. Daredevil had retrieved it for them.) into it like a nurse passing a scalpel to the surgeon. "OK, here goes nothing,” he said, and then, “Call 911.”

It wasn’t hard to sound distressed for the operator. Matt had Foggy read off the nearest visible address for the sake of verisimilitude, and the three of them huddled in the closed storefront’s doorway like they were sheltering from the rain, like three civilians trying to take comfort in each other. Matt propped his phone on his shoulder so he could cradle his injured hand in the good one, and leaned on the glass because he didn’t want either Foggy or Karen to have to take his weight right now.

In the distance, he heard a siren.


End file.
